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Collaborate to Innovate5 ways to support innovation

By Susan DeGenring

What is a fundamental requirement for

innovation in a team environment?

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We’ve identified five unique qualities of innovation, and mapped these to specific collaborative behaviors that support them.

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Innovation is iterative.

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Supporting behaviors

Team members must truly hear one another’s perspectives to capture the innovative opportunities inherent in their collective ideas.

This requires team members trust one another, demonstrated by their willingness to be influenced by each other, sharing their ideas and allowing others to build upon and give them new dimension or meaning.

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Innovation can be creatively disruptive to team cohesion.

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Supporting behaviors

Teams who innovate must be able to disagree and then find ways to reconcile conflict in order for innovative ideas to surface and thrive. Innovative teams are those that also tolerate temporary disharmony.

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Innovation can be unpredictable and inefficient.

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Supporting behaviors

Team members must learn from and respond to important discoveries as they arise.

The most successful team leaders know how to facilitate the discovery process for the greatest balance between inclusion and business efficiencies, without over-controlling the outcome.

And, team members must know how to build agreement from a variety of points of view in order to more forward.

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Innovation is risky.

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Supporting behaviors

Teams must demonstrate support for risk taking and change, and tolerance of mistakes.

A team climate characterized by collaborative, mutually supportive relationships enables team members to take risks to innovate.

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Innovation is a group activity.

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Supporting behaviors

Team members must share responsibility for the team’s process, climate and outcomes. Mining knowledge from different sources of expertise means asking for help, and being willing to accept it.

Conversely, the most successful teams report learning how to build enough trust to be able and willing to relinquish ownership of ideas and innovations, while sharing the risk.

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Collaboration drives creativity because innovation always emerges from a series of sparks – never a single flash of insight.

Sawyer, K., 2007, Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration

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About Interaction Associates

For nearly 40 years we have helped companies and organizations bring about exciting changes within their organizations—developing collaborative, committed workforces that realize improved organizational performance.

We focus on building the collaborative capacity of organizations to help them achieve a high “return on involvement.”

Visit us at www.interactionassociates.com.